voting members vs non voting discussion

I have sifted through several pages of minutes, voting reports, etc and I have found that we have a pretty high pool of members who are not active. Like the stats I found on one page said our registered voting membership went up, but the voting turnout was down from last year. So this got me to thinking... What happens to the "registered members" number when someone is no longer active in the organization?

I think this is why most clubs and organizations have a year membership so members have to join up for another year of "support" for the organization. This is coming from other sites I am a member of that usually require a yearly membership fee. This way you have the normal members number and the active members numbers to do your calcuations with and to use as ammo when confronting geocaching issues.

I think it would be fairly easy to make a yearly renewal page on the anniversary date of your "registered member" status date. The registered user would also get an e-mail a few weeks before and a few days before(along with a Private Message)....if no action is taken, that user would be bumped to normal status automatically. If the user finally logs on and sees that he is no longer a registered member, he can simply re-register(all the previous info will still be saved, just brought up to confirm and/or edit) and get the voting membership back and the access to specific areas of the forum.

I love the idea of keeping this organization free, but some simple house keeping with the numbers of active and inactive people would help alot. Because I think the voting turnout number would be different if it said something like:

Last year, voter turnout was 73 out of 128, or 57%.

This year, voter turnout was 62 out of 182, or 34%.

What if 30 members were "rolled off" and it was 62 out of 152 making it 40% It looks a little better and allows you to keep track of another statistic...Registered members who no longer care!

Also, Just curious...at the 2010 arkgeo event, will there be someone who ask guests that are not "registered members" to become registered on the spot as they get their name tag and brochure? This would require someone having a pc with internet connection. I am curious to how many "new members" both registered and non registered will get created because of this event and the more we tell them about arkgeo at this particular event the more likely you'll see the membership go up and the voting turnout go up.